About FFSBD
Sustainable livelihoods, built one business at a time.
The Foundation for Small Business Development is a U.S. 501(c)(3) public charity. We fund and support entrepreneurship and small-business development in every country — on the belief that a durable job beats a one-time handout.
Our thesis
Aid ends. A business keeps paying.
Short-term relief can carry a household through a crisis, but it rarely changes what happens the week after. A viable small business is different: it produces income that repeats, employs neighbors, and reinvests in the same community, month after month.
That is the case for funding entrepreneurship as development work rather than charity work alone. FFSBD's grants are sized and structured to get a real business past the point where lack of capital, not lack of ability, is the only thing holding it back.
Charter, in brief
- Status
- 501(c)(3) public charity
- Jurisdiction
- United States
- Registered office
- Warrenton, Virginia
- Scope of funding
- All countries
- Focus
- Small business & entrepreneurship
How we think about impact
Money moves through a business into a place.
We look at each grant not as a single transaction but as the start of a chain: a business that survives buys supplies locally, pays wages locally, and keeps spending inside the community it serves — work the ILO and other development bodies recognize as a core lever against poverty.
Jobs, not just income
A business that survives and expands employs people beyond its founder — and small economic units account for a very large share of employment worldwide.
Resilience over dependence
Communities built on many independent small businesses are less exposed to the failure of any single large employer or industry.
Markets, not just charity
Helping small producers reach larger domestic or export markets turns a subsistence operation into a growing one.
Governance
A public charity, accountable by design.
As a 501(c)(3) public charity, FFSBD operates for exempt charitable purposes and does not distribute profit to any individual. Our grantmaking follows a documented review process, and our finances and governance are open to the scrutiny that status requires.
Read our transparency page →See what we fund.
Ten focus areas, one goal: businesses that last.